


Silver Threads

by Crowgirl



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Aging, Angst, Feels, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-22 19:07:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3740254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowgirl/pseuds/Crowgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I just never had grey hair before."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silver Threads

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SS7Goddess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SS7Goddess/gifts).



Dean has been sulking for two days.

Castiel has checked the word definition on Sam’s laptop and sulking is definitely the correct term: he is silent, morose, bad-tempered. Dean is not usually any of those things and the silence in the car is almost palpable.

Sam has tried a time or two to break it, but Dean snapped at him so sharply the last time that Sam has been watching scenery pass since. Castiel knows Sam is not particularly upset -- he just thinks his brother has slept badly or is irritated about the mediocre food of the past few days or something similar. Dean will snap out of it; he always does. 

But he does not.

Another day passes, another day -- and now Castiel can see that Sam is getting genuinely angry. Almost any comment to Dean is met either with a grunt, a shrug, or some offhand reply that sometimes only reveals that he has not been listening.

They stop in a small town over night, needing a little breathing space to let Sam find a direction for them. The sky that had been uniformly grey and lowering for the past day chooses that night to let loose in torrents of rain. This would have been fine had it not been for the two feet of snow that still lay on the frozen ground. The rain collects in dips, hollows, cracks, and then starts to run everywhere, forcing the still half-frozen river into an unexpectedly uproarious flood which washes out a curve of road between the town and the nearest highway. Wisdom seems like the better part of valor here and they elect to camp out in the motel until either the road is clear or Sam discovers something they can hunt in the opposite direction.

From where he sits by the window of the motel room, Castiel can hear the river even though it must be a clear half-mile from where he is and the window is closed. It’s a low, booming, resentful sound, as if the river is angry at being invaded by the rain. 

And that is a ridiculous thought. Castiel shakes his head to get rid of it and glances over at the half-open bathroom door. He can just see Dean leaning over the sink, apparently engrossed in his own reflection. Castiel does a rapid count backwards in his head and, yes, this is the fourteenth time he has noticed Dean studying himself in some reflective surface in two days. There had been more incidents yesterday but, in fairness, the boys haven’t been awake for very long today.

Sam finishes tying his boot and thumps his feet on the floor. ‘Dean, y’ready to go?’

‘I don’t feel like getting soaked for pancakes,’ Dean calls back and Castiel blinks.

Sam glances quickly at him, half-opens his mouth, then obviously changes his mind and closes it again. ‘Your choice. Want me to bring you back anything?’

‘Coffee. And some M&Ms or somethin’.’

‘Okay. Cas? You want anything?’

‘Coffee, please. And some fruit if they have any.’ He is trying conscientiously to pay better attention to the needs of this body but there are some things he simply cannot get used to. Having a large meal first thing in the morning is one of them.

‘Got it.’ Sam shoulders his backpack and adds, ‘If I find a place with wi-fi, I might just hang out for a bit.’

‘Of course.’

Sam yanks the hood of his sweatshirt up over his head, eyeballs the pouring rain outside, and grimaces. ‘Wish me luck.’ Before Castiel can say anything, he’s gone, ducking out the door into a louder moment of river noise.

The door shuts, the noise quiets, and Dean comes out of the bathroom. ‘He’s pretty pissed at me, huh.’ He jerks a thumb towards the door and slumps down on the end of his bed.

Castiel shrugs. ‘I do not think so.’ Which is honest enough. If Sam were really angry, he would have stopped talking by now.

Dean nods gloomily, staring down at the floor between his bare feet. ‘Yeah, well...’ He runs a hand through his short hair, ruffling it, and then glowers at his palm and wipes it against his thigh. ‘I know I haven’t been great lately.’ He shoots Castiel a covert glance under his lashes.

Castiel pauses for a moment. He knows now that this is Dean angling to get Castiel to ask him what is wrong -- then Dean can unburden himself without volunteering to ‘talk about his feelings or some chick flick shit’ as he once said to Sam. Castiel has noticed that other humans do this, too, and he often finds it irritating -- it can be a petty grab for attention, a close pass to whining, neither of which things he finds sympathetic or appealing. But Dean’s quick glance, a flash of dark green under blond lashes apparently creates a different feeling. ‘Are you not well?’

‘Nah, nah, I’m fine.’ Dean huffs out a breath and glares at the palm of his hand again, then pulls one foot under himself and goes on, ‘It’s just -- I mean, I know it’s stupid but -- I thought I’d be dead by now, y’know?’

Castiel blinks. Even though he is sitting, he feels as though he has been rocked backwards. The words hurt, a little as if Dean had reached out and punched Castiel over the heart. Not hard, but enough to make him feel winded. He automatically reaches up to rub his breastbone to ease the discomfort.

‘I didn’t -- shit. That’s not what I meant.’ Dean stretches out a hand, then gets up and crosses the room to sit in the other armchair beside him. ‘Sorry, Cas. That’s not what I meant.’

Castiel nods slowly, fingertips still pressing over his breast. ‘Then what did you mean?’ The pain is more like a shadow now, but a persistent one. He knows this because it never really goes away. His fear that Dean hates him for bringing him back, for trying to use him, has never been totally banished. He thinks of it something like a mist: it thins sometimes and fades in the light of the sun but never quite leaves.

Dean scrubs a hand through his hair, looks at his palm again, and laughs, then stretches out his hand to Castiel. ‘This. Just...this and I know, I know, it’s fuckin’ pathetic, you don’t have to tell me.’

Castiel looks at Dean’s palm and then back at his face. ‘Your...hand?’ Without thinking he reaches out to support Dean’s hand with his own. ‘You are hurt.’ Dean’s skin is warm against his palm, his knuckles a little rough from the cold weather. Castiel can feel the prickle of rough hair against his fingertips if he stretches his hand a little, the slight rise of Dean’s wristbones.

Dean shakes his head. ‘No --’ He squints at his palm and pinches something between the finger and thumb of his other hand. ‘This.’

Castiel looks at Dean’s face for a long minute to see if this is a joke. But Dean’s face is nothing but sober and a little tired, the skin under his eyes a bit too dark for Castiel’s taste. So, he leans forward, tilting his head until he can see a fine thread of silver between Dean’s fingertips. ‘A hair?’

Dean pulls a face and flicks the hair away with a shake of his wrist. ‘A grey hair.’

‘A grey hair,’ Castiel repeats, sitting back and looking at Dean’s short-cropped hair. He can distinguish at least three different shades: the ends, recently cut, are the lightest and they will only get brighter blond as the summer goes on. Behind his ears and at the back of his neck just above the collar of his shirt is relatively dark. And even in the poor lighting of the motel room, Castiel can see sparks of red and even gold. ‘Dean, your hair is at least five different colors.’

Dean grimaces again. ‘I know -- I said it was stupid, right?’

‘You -- are concerned your hair is -- losing color?’ Castiel hazards.

‘No! Well. No. Sort of.’ Dean sighs and runs his hands over his head again, then shakes them and sits on them, pinning his palms under his thighs. ‘I just -- I just never had grey hair before. I never thought I _would_ have grey hair.’

‘It is likely you have had grey hair for many years.’

‘Yeah, I know.' Dean is silent for a minute then adds thoughtfully, 'I dated a girl once who had a little patch of blue hair.’ He pulls one hand free and taps behind his left ear. ‘Just here. Weirdest thing. Just half a dozen hairs. Dark blue.’

‘Dye.’

Dean shakes his head. ‘Nope. She cut ‘em, plucked ‘em, even bleached her hair one time and they were still there when the bleach grew out.’

‘Why did you think you would not have grey hair?’

‘I thought I’d be dead.’ Dean’s mouth twists in something that’s sort of a smile and sort of not. Castiel does not like it. ‘I mean, I _was_ , right? Maybe I got...’ He waves a hand by his head. ‘Kinda singed.’

Castiel swallows against a bitter taste at the back of his throat. He needs to say something and it needs to be the right thing and he has no idea what that is. 

‘Hey, chicks dig silver foxes, right? Isn’t that the new thing?’

‘Silver…?’

‘Old guys, Cas.’

‘You are only thirty years old, Dean.’

‘The only hunter I ever knew over forty was my dad.’

‘And Bobby.’

‘And Bobby,’ Dean repeats. ‘And look how that ended up.’ He scowls and then shakes his head firmly. ‘But I gotta get over this, right? Sam’s gonna smack me upside the head if I don’t.’

‘You are not old,’ Castiel says again. 

Dean looks up at him, gaze unguarded. ‘’m older than I thought I’d be.’

‘And you will be older than this.’ Castiel presses his palm to Dean’s knee, then to his heart, leaning forward over the other man’s knees to reach. The beat is steady under his hand, telling him what he already knows: Dean is healthy, strong, alive.

‘Yeah?’ Dean covers Castiel’s hand with his own. ‘What about you, Cas? You like the whole silver fox thing?’ Dean tilts his head slightly and Castiel can see that his mouth is drawn a little tight; he is waiting for Castiel to say something so he can make a joke and get them both out of this sudden awkward intimacy. 

‘You mean will I like you when you are old.’

Dean takes a breath, then lets it out in a long sigh. ‘No. No, I mean...I mean d’you like me _now,_ Cas.’ He grimaces a little as he finishes speaking, making a motion almost as if he wishes he could reclaim the words.

‘Yes.’ 

Dean shakes his head and drops his hand back to his knee. 

‘What? What are you disagreeing with?’

‘It’s -- that’s -- it’s not what I meant. Is all. It’s fine.’ Dean waves a hand and pushes himself to his feet. ‘It’s fine -- forget it.’ He jerks a thumb over his shoulder at the door. ‘Think I’m gonna follow Sammy, see if I can get in on those--’

Castiel stands up and takes the short step forward that plants him toe-to-toe with Dean. ‘There is no sense in which you could ask that question to which my answer would not be yes.’

‘I--’ Dean squints at him. ‘Come again?’

‘Gladly.’ Castiel threads his fingers through the short hair at the back of Dean’s neck and pulls him into a kiss. Dean’s mouth is stiff under his for a moment then he feels Dean sigh against his cheek and everything about him relaxes, leaning against Castiel, mouth opening slightly under his. 

Dean is the one to move back but he only goes far enough to allow himself room to speak. ‘So...okay, then.’

‘Okay,’ Castiel echoes, letting his thumb caress the angle of Dean’s jawbone under his ear.

Dean shivers and swallows and his eyes dart past Castiel’s shoulder. ‘So --Sam’s gonna be gone for a few hours.’

‘Yes, he is.’

Dean’s hands are warm on Castiel’s sides, settling just above his beltline. ‘’m still blond everywhere else.’ He is almost grinning but not quite and Castiel knows this is merely evading a question which will return as such questions always do. But, as Dean says, Sam is gone, they are alone, and he wants to try this new -- kind of new, somewhat new, mostly new -- thing between them.

‘I think you will have to show me.’

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, it is the world's silliest title and you can thank the inimitable John Inman of _Are You Being Served?_ : "I'm starting to see silver threads amongst the gold!"
> 
> Yes, I know I strand them in floods a lot. Blame my upbringing on a dirt road in rural Maine; you say, "Get someone stuck in the middle of nowhere for the purposes of working out a fairly tenuous fic concept!" and I say, "How close is the nearest river?"
> 
> And the girl with the blue hair was, in actual factual fact, a friend of mine in college and I can vouch for the reality of the tale.
> 
> Credit for the details that filled in my craving to write, and I quote, 'fluffy self-pity fluff with a happy fluffy ending' goes to [@SS7Goddess](https://twitter.com/ss7goddess) and [@AKA_Lady_Emma](https://twitter.com/aka_lady_emma).


End file.
